“Bethel…Gilgal…Beer-sheba.” Three centers of pagan worship that had been established by Amos’ time. For Bethel and Gilgal, see commentary on Amos 4:4. Beer-sheba too had become a center of pagan worship (Amos 8:14). God is warning, as He does over and over, about the dangers of pagan worship. Yahweh alone is God and to worship anything but Him will only result in disaster, as is portrayed here: captivity and destruction. All of these cities were places where God had moved powerfully, and great men and women of God had been. The Devil loves to take such places and pervert the worship there so that it is directed to him instead of God, as if he could humiliate God. But also, it seems to be easier to get people to pervert godly worship and godly sites than to start over with brand new sites. Among all his other horrible attributes, the Devil is a parasite, building his perverted worship on the foundation God established for loving and godly worship.